Monday, October 26, 2015

An independent assessment of popular pellet stoves conducted
by the Alliance for Green Heat found
that pellet stoves, unlike most wood stoves, can achieve low levels of emissions in
real world settings that are in line with laboratory results.

The Alliance for Green Heat ran a battery of tests on
popular pellet stoves designed to approximate how they would perform in the
real world.The group found that half of
the stoves operated as clean at the end of the thirty-day test than they did at
the beginning and the others were only slightly dirtier.

All six stoves, from the least to the most expensive, operated
well, and produced enough heat for a small to medium- sized home in most of the
United States.One of the biggest
differences was that the three more expensive stoves tested (above $4,000)
needed very little weekly cleaning and maintenance.The less expensive stoves ($1,200 to $3,300)
needed daily or at least bi-weekly cleaning of their burn pots and glass.

The study also found a lack of accepted reporting standards,
leading to exaggerated claims about efficiency, BTU output and pellet hopper
size on manufacturer websites and promotional literature.

The Alliance for Green Heat tested the stoves to give
consumers better tools and make better purchasing decisions.The study is part of a yearlong Pellet Stove
Design Challenge that assesses the state of existing pellet stove
technologies.The Design Challenge will culminate
in a competition for the cleanest and most efficient stoves, modeled after the
Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon.

Approximately one million American homes are heated with
pellet stoves, more than twice the number that have solar panels. In Italy alone, 2 million households heat with pellets. Pellet stoves often serve as primary heat
sources, enabling homes to eliminate or drastically reduce fossil heating fuel.Last year, about 40,000 pellet
stoves were sold in the U.S. and they may outsell wood stoves in the near future.

The Alliance tested the England Stove Works 25-PDCVC, the
Enviro M55 insert, the Harman Accentra 52i insert, the Piazzetta Sabrina, the
Quadra-Fire Mt. Vernon AE, and the Ravelli RV80.The group assessed each stove on its cleanliness,
efficiency, maintenance, heat output and visibility of glass.The overall winner was the Quadra-Fire Mt.
Vernon AE, which received top marks in three of the five categories. The Harman Accentra received top marks in two of the five categories.

The results of this study underscore that pellet stoves tend
to burn substantially cleaner than wood stoves in real world settings, but it
challenges the notion that pellet stoves generally have higher efficiencies
than wood stoves.The efficiencies of
the six stoves were low to medium, which is partially the result of companies
not having to test and report actual efficiency numbers.

“Our testing confirmed that pellet stoves are an effective
and affordable renewable energy technology,” said John Ackerly, President of
the Alliance for Green Heat. “We hoped to see higher efficiencies, but
efficiencies should improve in coming years,” Ackerly added.

Click
here to read the full report on our website.Click here to download a PDF of the report (the PDF does not have all the links and photos that the online version has).Click here to download a PDF of the background materials to the report.

The
Alliance for Green Heat promotes modern wood and pellet heat as a low-carbon,
sustainable and affordable residential energy solution. The Alliance works to
advance cleaner and more efficient wood heating appliances and focuses on low
and middle-income families.Founded in
2009, the Alliance is a 510(c)(3) non-profit organization based in
Maryland.

Friday, October 9, 2015

On
October 6, the US government agency responsible for tracking energy supply and
usage released its annual winter fuels outlook. The report predicted that next winter will be warmer than average but energy prices will be lower. Consequently, consumers are expected to pay
10 – 20% less on their household heating than last winter.

The
report notes that the use of cord wood and wood pellets as the primary
residential space heating fuel has increased by 33% since 2005 and estimates that about 2.6
million households mainly used this fuel source in 2014. About 8% of households use wood as a secondary source
of heat, making wood second only to electricity as a supplemental heating fuel.

The report, produced by the Energy Information Agency (EIA), projects primary wood and pellet heating to grow by 1.4% during the 2015-2016 winter. Electric heating is projected to rise even faster, by
2.5%.Natural gas is projected to remain
basically flat, and oil and propane heating are projected to decline by
4.4% and 3.4%, respectively.

The overall national residential wood heat rise of 1.4% includes quicker projected
growth in the Northeast and a slight decline in the West.Wood and pellet heating is projected to rise
fastest in the Northeast at 2.8% and the South at 2.6%. It's only projected to
rise 0.8% in the Midwest and decline by 0.3% in Western states.

In 2014, the Pellet Fuels Institute reported that shipments of pellet stoves grew by 41%. On average, 2 out of every 5 new stoves sold is a pellet stove and 3 are wood stoves. This ratio does not include the popular, though polluting, uncertified wood stoves that are still on the market until the end of this year.

"The trend towards more pellet heating is crucial as wood heat expands in America," said John Ackerly, President of the Alliance for Green Heat. "The growth in pellet heating, even as oil and gas prices fall, show a demand for a cleaner, local fuel that still can be greatly scaled up," Ackerly said.

Wood heating was increasing faster than electric heating for many
years, but since 2008, wood has increased by nearly 10% and electricity
increased by nearly 15%.

In terms of the amount of energy generated by residential
renewables, wood continues to be the dominant player, generating 66% of all
residential renewable energy in 2014.Solar produced less than half the energy as wood and pellet stoves,
making up 29% of residential renewable energy in 2014.Geothermal produced nearly 5%.

However, solar will soon be catching up to wood according to EIA
projections, thanks to extensive state and federal subsidies.In 2016, the EIA projects that wood and
pellet stoves will only produce 54% of residential renewable energy and solar
will produce 40%.Geothermal is
projected to rise to nearly 6%.

The EIA did not include data or projections on wood and pellet hearing until their 2012 report. Senator Shaheen (D-NH), the Alliance for Green Heat, and other groups pressed the agency to be more inclusive of the technology that was used by more households than oil or propane. Since then, the EIA has gone much further and is about to start surveying wood pellet producers to provide accurate and timely data about pellet production and usage.